The recovery process

When there is a change to your Council Tax account, we will send you an updated bill. Always refer to the most recent bill when making payments.

Council Tax is a priority debt. Not paying your Council Tax can have serious consequences.

What happens if you don’t pay your Council Tax

1. First reminder notice

If you pay your instalment late or miss a payment, we must follow a legal recovery process. We will send you a First Reminder Notice.

If you pay the first reminder amount in full within 7 days:

You still have to pay your future instalments as shown on your latest bill.

If you do not pay the first reminder amount in full within 7 days:

You will receive a Magistrates Court Summons.

This will add more costs to your bill.

2. Second reminder notice

If you have paid the first reminder notice in full but fall behind again later in the same year, you will receive a second reminder notice.

If you pay the second reminder notice amount in full within 7 days:

Your future instalments remain due and payable as shown on your latest bill.

If you do not pay the second reminder notice amount in full within 7 days:

You will receive a Magistrates Court Summons.

This will add additional costs to your bill.

3. Final notice

If you have paid the second reminder notice in full but fall behind again later in the same year, you will receive a final notice.

When that happens:

• Your instalments are cancelled
• You must pay the full balance for the year immediately

If you do not pay the full amount immediately, you will receive a Magistrates Court Summons. This will also add additional costs to your bill.

4. Magistrates Court summons

If you don't pay the balance shown on the first reminder notice, the second reminder notice or the final notice, you will receive Magistrate Court summons. An additional cost of £60 will be added to your bill.

The Magistrates Court Summons will include a court hearing date shown by which you need to pay your Council Tax balance. It also explains that:

• You can pay in full
• You can pay by Special Payment Arrangement

This is your last opportunity to pay your Council Tax directly to us.

If you do not pay your balance in full by the court hearing date, we will apply for a liability order.

5. Liability Order

When the Magistrates approve the liability order, an additional cost of £25 will be added to your bill.

Once a Liability Order is granted, we may use the following statutory recovery methods for recovery of the debt:

Enforcement Agents (bailiffs)

Enforcement Agents will put further costs on to your account which you will need to pay.

If your case is passed to an Enforcement Agent:

• You must deal with them directly.
• They are trained to look at affordability when considering an offer of payment. We will not interfere in this process.
• An Enforcement Agent will always look to settling the debt by payment. They could take goods to the value of the outstanding debt.

Attachment of Earnings

Payments will be taken direct from your wages or salary based on a percentage of your earnings.

Your employer will have no choice in this matter.

Attachment of Benefits

Payments can be taken direct from certain state benefits and paid to us to reduce the amount you owe.

Charging order

This is a court order placed against your property (if you own property). We can force the sale of your property to settle the Council Tax debt.

Bankruptcy/insolvency

In some cases, we may decide to make a person bankrupt in order to raise assets to settle outstanding Council Tax.

If you are struggling to pay

If you are struggling to pay, please contact us as early as possible. We can check whether you are entitled to:

• Council Tax Support, including Working Age Council Tax Reduction
• Discounts
• Exemptions
• Discretionary reductions

The earlier you contact us, the more options we can offer.